This letter was written by a person incarcerated at SATF (California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison).
Many readers may think that prisoners don’t have feelings or don’t deserve empathy, and they would be wrong to think so. Prisoners were once regular individuals of society, and have feelings and emotions that in every human being. Furthermore, many has families on the outside. The fact that they committed crimes that have lasting and devastating effects on families and communities does not mean that they don’t have feelings and emotions.
They are locked up in prison because of their criminal behaviors, and not because they lost their humanity. Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT defending criminals or prisoners, myself included, nor I am justifying criminal behaviors. I only wish to present aspects that are inherent in prisoners but that are largely ignored or dismissed by society. That is why I am referring to prisoners as “people in prison.”
Again, I am not finding fault or placing blame, but only presenting the experiences of people in prison during this pandemic. The most important thing is the struggles that we all face are similar, if not the same, whether in or out of prison. The examples are the health and safety of our loved ones, how will we get through this pandemic, and will it end?
